What’s your incentive to work out and eat healthy day after day after day?

Believe it or not, I’ve never watched “The Biggest Loser” television show, but I’m very familiar with a phenomenon I call The Biggest Loser Effect. For several years now, a local health club has run a Biggest Loser Contest two or three times a year, as a way to boost club membership, improve attendance, and (of course) motivate people to lose weight. Individuals or teams work out, participate in exercise classes, weigh in weekly, and the winning man, woman, and/or team collects a nice price consisting of cash and services (for personal training, massages, pedicures, etc.). The club lays claim to some pretty impressive success stories, like a husband and wife who lost over 100 pounds between the two of them. That’s a good thing. If health doesn’t motivate you to lose weight, maybe cash and prizes will.

But who or what’s going to motivate you to keep going back to the health club, watching what you eat, and avoiding the morning temptation of a warm bed or the evening temptation of a nacho platter and a pitcher of beer? Who’s going to get your lazy butt over to the gym every day and power you through 45 minutes on the treadmill, stepper, or weight machines? When your lungs are searching for air and your straining legs are attempting the 9th jumping jack, is a piece of paper imprinted with “Federal Reserve Note” going to keep you going?

Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I’m what makes Jean jump the 10th time, and I’ve watched dozens of people of all shapes, sizes and ages leap into the Biggest Loser Contest with only a dim idea of how much work (and luck) will be involved in winning that prize. They show up for one or two classes, do a few reps with two-pound hand weights, wipe the sweat from their brow, and head off to McDonald’s for a light breakfast of sausage biscuits with hash browns, a cinnamon roll, and a giant Dr. Pepper (remember: I live in the South)…never to be seen again, except maybe on the obituary page of the local newspaper.

That’s what I mean by The Biggest Loser Effect. The contest is a good start, a pledge to make important changes. Just stepping on the scale in a public place like a gym is a big deal. But the contest isn’t enough. Weight management is a contest that goes on for the rest of your life, and the grand prize is far more valuable than $500 or even $1,000,000 cash. The prize is living 10 or more years longer and healthier than you would have otherwise. The Biggest Loser Contest winners are the people who think about their eating and exercise all week long, not just when weigh-in time rolls around on Saturday morning.

It may sound like I’m making fun of the losers who quit, but I can spot the quitters so easily because I used to be a quitter myself. A friend made me laugh the other day when she told me about checking through her “vast library of DVD’s” to find a Leslie Sansone exercise video. It reminded me of a “less is more” phase I went through a few years ago, during which I cleared my house of a lot of the clutter that had accumulated through the years, including my own vast library of exercise videos, some of them still sealed in their original packaging. Apparently I had thought that simply purchasing an exercise video would count as real exercise, or I played the video once, quit after 10 or 12 minutes, and sent it to the video graveyard in my bookcase. So I know whereof I speak. And I also know I’m going to go on being a loser, but I’m not going to go on being a quitter. Are you?

understood Ms Jeannie......great post as always ♥

The key for me was finding activities that I liked and felt that I could stick to. Before being banded I only walked occasionaly. Once i got approved for surgery I joined the Y and started on a weight machine that had you go around the room woking out on each machine for a specific amount of timeor reps. I hated it so I switched to swimming 3 x a week and walking once a week. Once I was banded and continued to walk and swim the weight literally started falling off of me ! Now I still swim 3x a week an have graduated to running ! ( my dream was to be a runner !!!!!, and im a slow runner but a runner neverthe less !!) 65 lbs down !!!

OK I feel like a quitter. I like the warm coziness of my bed in the morning and I hate waking up when I don't get a good enough nights rest and it's dark outside.

I spend too much of my day on my butt behind my computer flexing my mental muscle but that's about it. I try to keep motivated to get me to the gym and get a work out in, and sometimes I make it and sometimes nope it's just not happening.

I know it's my own fault, I'd really like to get a nice solid routine going. Put everything on hold and just do it, it sounds good but when your not feeling it, it's dam hard to do.

It's an area that for me needs some REAL focus....I wanna be a loser not a quitter!!

I watched the Biggest Loser like some tv zombie, ask me anything about that show! sad really. But here's the thing that was ALWAYS foremost in my mind as I watched--> Biggest Loser is a REALITY TV SHOW!!!..with producers, camera people..and a million other off camera folks making this show watchable and entertaining. Edited so we out here in "couchville" think we can DO IT TOO!!!!..Get real people!!!..not once did I get up off my couch, set down my Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and get to the gym. NOPE not once. I was to busy watching tv!!!..Gotta love 'corporate' America!

It was my declining health and threat of death, that got my lazy a$$ moving. Once I had RnY (not to mention the MONEY it cost me to have the surgery) and got my inner dialog fighting with me, like a bad sibling, my life became like a SUPER SET. I never looked back. I couldn't afforded to. Financially or physically.

I agree The Biggest Loser is TV not reality. They are working out 6 hours a day with the best trainers in the world and do not have the distractions of a job, kids, husband, house cleaning, etc. But I like to see the last chance workouts with everybody moaning and groaning and sweating. I would DVR the show each week and get on my elliptical and workout while watching it pushed me at the same time Bob or Jillian were pushing the others. One of the posters above talked about how hard it is to start a workout routine. It can be but don't assume you have to get up at the crack of dawn and go to the gym. I actually do not like gyms at all. I started by walking outside (now jogging 3-4 miles, 3x per week). I also have dvds that challenge you with hand weights I mix it up and do a different one 1-2 times per week. There are also so many free on demand workouts on cable tv. Make it easy for yourself to start.

Thank you for this post, this was a great post, and a great analogy. I personally LOVE the show the biggest loser and have watched every season since it's started, and every time I watched it I felt like it inspired me somehow that night anyway till the next day and I would just be like whatever, and the the following week I would be watching it again and being like I could do that, and the rotation began. Not this year, I am not being the quitter this time, I am going to be my own biggest loser and I am going to be inspired by myself and show myself how much I can do this I don't need a show to inspire me. Workouts aren't easy, and diets are easy. Life isn't easy, you have to put forth the effort if you really want something, and for a long time I wanted it but I wasn't willing to put forth the effort. I am ready now and I am going to do everything I need to do to get past this point in my life and move to the next chapter!!! So thanks Jean, I am glad you posted this!!!

I know of someone on there and many things of HOW they lose so quickly is not televised and frankly not realistic. Used to envy the contestants but the practices are not conducive to every day life and many gain a good portion back! Slow and steady is always best.